EUROPE OPEN TO ENTERPRISE

My third guiding principle is the need for Community policies which encourage
enterprise. If Europe is to flourish and create the jobs of the future, enterprise is the key.
The basic framework is there: the Treaty of Rome itself was intended as a Charter for
Economic Liberty. But that it is not how it has always been read, still less applied. The
lesson of the economic history of Europe in the 70's and 80's is that central planning and
detailed control do not work and that personal endeavour and initiative do. That a Statecontrolled economy is a recipe for low growth and that free enterprise within a
framework of law brings better results.
The aim of a Europe open to enterprise is the moving force behind the creation of the
Single European Market in 1992. By getting rid of barriers, by making it possible for
companies to operate on a European scale, we can best compete with the United States,
Japan and other new economic powers emerging in Asia and elsewhere. And that
means action to free markets, action to widen choice, action to reduce government
intervention. Our aim should not be more and more detailed regulation from the centre:
it should be to deregulate and to remove the constraints on trade.
Britain has been in the lead in opening its markets to others. The City of London has
long welcomed financial institutions from all over the world, which is why it is the
biggest and most successful financial centre in Europe. We have opened our market for
telecommunications equipment, introduced competition into the market services and
even into the network itselfsteps which others in Europe are only now beginning to
face. In air transport, we have taken the lead in liberalisation and seen the benefits in
cheaper fares and wider choice. Our coastal shipping trade is open to the merchant
navies of Europe. We wish we could say the same of many other Community members.
Regarding monetary matters, let me say this. The key issue is not whether there should be
a European Central Bank.
The immediate and practical requirements are:
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to implement the Community's commitment to free movement of capitalin

Britain, we have it;

and to the abolition through the Community of exchange controlsin Britain,

we abolished them in 1979;

to establish a genuinely free market in financial services in banking, insurance,

investment;
and to make greater use of the ecu.

This autumn, Britain is issuing ecu-denominated Treasury bills and hopes to see other
Community governments increasingly do the same. These are the real requirements
because they are what the Community business and industry need if they are to
compete effectively in the wider world. And they are what the European consumer
wants, for they will widen his choice and lower his costs. It is to such basic practical
steps that the Community's attention should be devoted.
When those have been achieved and sustained over a period of time, we shall be in a
better position to judge the next move. It is the same with frontiers between our
countries. Of course, we want to make it easier for goods to pass through frontiers. Of
course, we must make it easier for people to travel throughout the Community. But it is
a matter of plain common sense that we cannot totally abolish frontier controls if we are
also to protect our citizens from crime and stop the movement of drugs, of terrorists and
of illegal immigrants.
That was underlined graphically only three weeks ago when one brave German customs
officer, doing his duty on the frontier between Holland and Germany, struck a major
blow against the terrorists of the IRA.
And before I leave the subject of a single market, may I say that we certainly do not need
new regulations which raise the cost of employment and make Europe's labour market
less flexible and less competitive with overseas suppliers.
If we are to have a European Company Statute, it should contain the minimum
regulations. And certainly we in Britain would fight attempts to introduce collectivism
and corporatism at the European levelalthough what people wish to do in their own
countries is a matter for them.